1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-114844 discloses a connector in which a plurality of terminal fittings are accommodated in a housing and wires connected to the respective terminal fittings are drawn out from the rear surface of the housing. This connector is provided with both individual sealing structures for sealing an individual rubber plug individually externally fitted on each wire by bringing the individual rubber plug into close contact with the inner peripheral surface of a terminal accommodating chamber and a collective sealing structure for sealing the wires by passing the wires into a plurality of seal holes formed in a one-piece rubber plug. Rear end parts of the terminal accommodating chambers for individual sealing project backward as seal tower portions from the rear surface of the housing and these seal tower portions penetrate through holes formed in the one-piece rubber plug. In this way, individual sealing areas and a collective sealing area out of the rear surface of the housing are covered by one one-piece rubber plug.
In this connector, a peripheral wall portion is caused to project from the rear surface of the housing as a means for holding the one-piece rubber plug in a state mounted in the housing and the one-piece rubber plug is accommodated in an accommodation space in the peripheral wall portion. Further, a rear holder is provided to cover the rear surface of the one-piece rubber plug and assembled in a state accommodated in the accommodation space. Furthermore, the connector of patent literature 1 is configured to be fitted into a receptacle of a male mating connector and a ring-shaped sealing means is necessary on the outer periphery of the housing as a sealing means for sealing a connected part to the mating connector.
The peripheral wall portion in the connector of Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2013-114844 is an essential structure since having a function of accommodating the one-piece rubber plug and a function of supporting the rear holder. Since the peripheral wall portion surrounds the one-piece rubber plug, it is not structurally possible to cause an outer peripheral part of the one-piece rubber plug to function as the sealing means to the mating connector. As just described, since the connector of patent literature 1 requires the sealing means to the mating connector to be provided separately from the one-piece rubber plug, there is a problem of increasing the number of components.
The present invention was completed based on the above situation and aims to reduce the number of components.